My Vande Bharat Journey Exists Only in IRCTC servers

As an Indian Railways fan, I was extremely excited to travel on the newly launched Vande Bharat chair car trains. This was when the hype was fresh—if I remember correctly, it was the 3rd Vande Bharat in India and the route was Puri–Howrah .

I somehow convinced my entire family (despite the usual “new train hai, abhi mat jao” worries) and got the tickets booked. Everything was set… until a day before the journey, when the train was struck by lightning and badly damaged.

I still hoped it would be fixed overnight. But early in the morning on the boarding day, I woke up, checked my notification bar, and the first thing I saw was an IRCTC message at 5 AM — the train was cancelled.

By sheer luck, I managed to get confirmed seats on the Shatabdi Express, and that was the end of the Vande Bharat plan.

Since then, I’ve never gotten another chance to travel on a Vande Bharat train. At this point, I don’t know if it’s bad luck, nature, or some divine plan 😅

Anyone else had a similarly cursed first attempt?